Case Study: Identifying the high potentials

The Situation

The client, which has been in the business for over 30 years, sought to up-skill the firm’s management team by better equipping them to lead their respective teams and above all, their strategic awareness.

The client was looking for a way to engage the middle-management team into taking on a broader-level approach rather than just an operational one. Moreover, the company wants the middle-management team to take on a greater, more pro-active role within the company.

Our Approach – Understanding the potential of the current management team

We decided that the best approach is to carry out a skills audit exercise to identify who of the management team had the potential to take on greater strategic responsibilities.

Our first meeting was with the senior management team.  This involved an attentive listening phase, through which we understood the general modus operandi and their business strategy.  In addition, we also sought to comprehend and put into context their longer-term strategies.

We met the middle-management team to explain the scope of the exercise we were to undertake.  Understandably, some members of the team were skeptical and concerned that this was merely a ‘testing’ of their capabilities. We reassured them that this was an opportunity for them to see how best to grow within the company and also a way to see what self-development they could undertake to reach such goals.

Important to mention is that before meeting individually each manager, we carried out an online psychometric assessment. This was done to help us better identify the staff’s leadership potential by exploring their personality traits and understanding if they are able to take on added responsibilities that future roles could require.

With these results in hand, we then proceeded to the one-to-one meetings with each manager. The objective here was to discuss their skills, competencies and motivation.  We also assessed their technical skills in relation to their current role. We also endeavored to understand the challenges they face and their future aspirations within the company.

The psychometric assessment and more importantly, the individual meetings, helped identify who had the right set of skills, stamina, and commitment to contribute in taking the business to the next level. Furthermore, it helped identify the needs for further training and development.

All this information and the recommended way forward was included in a detailed report which we presented to the senior management team.

Way forward

Management took on board recommendations provided in the report.  Staff members are currently undertaking coaching sessions and attending development workshops.  Some members have also decided to enrol to academic courses. SurgeAdvisory has also been assisting in the delivery of a number of workshops and one-to-one coaching sessions.

This is a long-term process. Regular monitoring of the progress and developments will take place on a regular basis, with the first scheduled to take place in the coming months.